Just Jesus – by Walter Wink
The book I’m most recently talking about is Just Jesus—My Struggle To Become Human by Walter Wink. I knew Walter Wink and his wife June Keener-Wink and in fact did a five-day workshop with both of them in 1994 at Auburn Theological Seminary in New York City. Walter died in May of 2012, and this, his last book, was released in January of 2014.
I’ve read it twice and am not done with it yet. It has a hold on me. It’s written in 67 short vignettes, some as brief as part of a page, and some as long as seven pages. They stand alone and yet, as a collection they also stand together.
In my first reading, I read slowly, one vignette a day—partly because I wanted to think about it, and partly because I didn’t want it to come to an end. The different parts of his life shine through this book—Walter Wink as scholar and theologian; Walter Wink as peace and social activist; Walter Wink as human being; and Walter Wink as a person who is dying.
It feels to me as if he has left a manuscript for us to read that encourages me to keep trying to be an authentic human being and at the same time lets me know that there is grace abundant and I don’t need to pound every day senseless in trying.
Read it – see what he says to you.
